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Annals of Fear II	By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I do not make any money from these writings

Chapter List
- 41
- 42
- 43
Author's Note: I'm going away for the weekend and might not be back until Monday/Tuesday.   Therefore I'm posting up three day's worth of chapters.   Please note that, once these are up, there will be no more chapters until Tuesday.   Also, this story is being discussed here: http://mrsjeevas.joharrington.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11

The ambulance exploded just as Mello was vaulting the drystone wall.   He ducked back, colliding with Matt, who was right on his tail.   But it didn't matter.   The blast didn't reach the top of the embankment.   Mello looked around himself, in a full 360 degrees.   Then he yelled out, "Hal!"

"Here!"   Hal could be clearly seen in the fire's bright glare, scrambling up out of the chasm, a little further along the ridge.    Her hands found purchase on the roots and branches of the trees in her path. She looked a little wide-eyed, but not hurt.   Mello hurtled over to draw level at the edge of the wood.   He slid down a short distance, his biking boots cutting grooves in the soft soil.    He held out a hand to drag her up, but Hal didn't take it.   She made her own way to the drystone wall.   "Where were you?"

Mello bit his lip.   He was becoming quite desperate for a bar of chocolate now.    "We had an incident."   The silhouette woman had thrown him more than he was prepared to let on.    He peered down to where the ambulance was engulfed in its own inferno. "Were they alive?"

Hal steepled her fingers over her mouth and nose.   She leaned against the wall.   "I don't think so.   I damn well hope not."

Matt wandered past her, also on the wood side of the wall now.   Mello looked between them both, then back at the ambulance. His head moving jerkily.    "Surely they haven't been the burning that we've been smelling for ages?"    His gaze settled upon his husband.   Matt hadn't stopped walking.   "Where are you going, Mail?"

"Seeing how they got down there."   Matt called back without looking back.

Hal glanced sidewards at Matt, then back at Mello. She seemed very alert.   Mello sprinted the few feet back up the hill.   "What?"   He took off after his husband.   Hal paused before following them.    She soon caught up.   They were inspecting the damage done to the wall, when the ambulance obviously crashed through it.   Mello frowned, gazing at the track.   "How did they get up that kind of speed on here?   The whole angle is wrong."

Matt stood at the edge of the slope, staring down.   His hand was on one of the few trees left standing, for the whole strip down to the stream at the bottom.    "Bit fucked up."   He concluded.

Hal crouched down.   Her boots sank slightly into the sodden soil.    Her head was bowed.   Mello watched her pensively, then glanced at his husband.   "Mail, without taking this as permission to put it to the test, because that's not granted, could you replicate this?     In a vehicle of that size?"   He left Matt pondering it, while Mello placed a hand on Hal's shoulders. "You ok?"

Hal looked sharply up.   She barked, "We stood there talking!   We were up the bloody mountain for goodness knows how long.   Messing about, while all the time, two service officers were burning to death within our reach."

Mello nodded.   "I honestly thought that we could smell someone's bonfire.    It's Bonfire Night next week.   You always get the parties kind of seeping out for a month either side.     I honestly didn't..."   He fell silent.

"No." Matt replied.   "Not without taking out the wall opposite or getting a smaller car.   Or motorbike.   But you'd lose the mass with a motorbike."   The silence dragged out.   "Hard to knock a hole in the wall."

"Yes, Mail.   I do know what mass is."   Mello began sharply, but softened it halfway through and ended with an uneasy smile.   He rubbed a hand down Matt's arm, then surveyed Hal again.   "Why hasn't it been reported missing?    Shit like this, you expect to have every emergency service for miles rushing to help.   It's one of their own.   They're on radio.   Surely someone heard them die.   Someone in a call centre somewhere."

Hal shrugged.   "Our radios are down."   He had never seen her so close to tears.   She wasn't the sort of woman to cry at things like this.

Mello straightened his back and squared his shoulders.    He placed his hands on his hips.   "Ok, we're missing Deontic on this case.   That's official.    You can tell her that.   She watches out for the psychology.   Us three are basically ok, but just a touch out of whack.    We should watch that."    He smiled reassurance at Hal, as she glanced up.   "All that shit about America, yes I was fucking with you.   There was a serious objective, but I'll just bullet point it in a minute.   Here's my take on the current situation.   It's fucked."   He gestured behind him, to where the valley still burned.   "I don't like that they've had a serious accident without their colleagues responding.   That's got implications that are very worrying."   He raised a hand to stop Hal, as she made to speak.   "May I get all of this out please?    I'm not stopping you having your say.   I just want to get this out, while it's in my head."   He watched them both frown.   "I'm coping.   It's fine."   He smiled again, but they were both keenly assessing him.    Mello held two fingers into the air.    "Second issue.   I'm being very presumptive here, but ambulance drivers.   Big Welsh speaking population.    Is it too big a leap to assume that at least one of them is Welsh?    In which case, where is that fucking flying bitch?"   He referred to the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn.    He knew her name and how to pronounce it, but it felt a little like tempting fate to do so right now.    "And if she's been and gone, so we missed her, does that mean that Century is in bits in there?" He nodded towards the manor house, hidden in darkness from their view behind the copse.   "And if this ambulance was coming for Fenian, does that mean that he's been trapped somewhere ever since we got that call?"    He paused, four fingers in the air.   Then visibly reached a decision.   "We have to be careful with each other's heads in this place.   We're not only all over-sensitive, but things said in jest can go in way too deeply.   I didn't want to say anything, in case it aggravates things, but I think that you should both be aware that I'm witnessing out of character behaviour in both of you."    Mello lowered his hand, exhaling with relief.   "You may raise your issues now."

Hal frowned at him, then shook her head.   She started to march away back along the wall.

"Hal."   Mello called after her.

She snapped back, "If Century and Fenian are in danger, then..."

"You're not their mother, Hal."    Mello grabbed Matt's hand and was ready to jog to her side, when she stopped dead.    Mello gushed out, "You're right.   I'm prioritising that too.   But you walk into a dangerous place, even with the best intentions in the world, and someone else is going to wind up coming to rescue you too."    Their eyes locked for an intense few seconds, before Hal looked away.    Mello nodded.   "Hal, what you aren't saying is that you can't trust me at the moment.   I've always been a bit of a dangerous maverick, but I've gone to pieces and I've fucked with you tonight."

Matt added, "And she thinks you're going to kill the Celts."

"Oh, fuck's sake." Mello looked annoyed.   It was with himself.   "Ok. I thought we'd have more time.   I should have done the short version."

Hal's hands were on her hips.   She looked down in exasperation.

Matt smirked, "But Hal hasn't realised that she's not behaving professionally within her own world view."

Hal's temper went up like a top.   She took a step forward and bellowed into Matt's face, "I beg your pardon?!"

Matt didn't flinch.   He just smiled at her. Beside him, Mello's grip tightened on Matt's hand.   His blue eyes darkened.   The edge of uncertainty, which had hovered around his body language for the past five minutes, just flew away.   Hal was shaking. She looked like she didn't trust herself to speak.   Mello opened his mouth, but Matt interrupted him.   "If you think we're so dangerous to your charges, then why did you leave us alone once and why were you just about to walk off and leave us again?   You were originally here to, well, arrest me, but also protect them by guarding us."

Hal was gritting her teeth. She looked white with the effort of reining in her emotion.   Her words were hissed out, stilted and edgy, "I need five minutes."   She moved past Matt and leaned against the nearest tree, facing away from them.

Matt met Mello's gaze.   "You can stop worrying about yourself.   You've flipped back now."

"Interesting." Mello's smile was serpentine.   "But touche, because you're not saying to me precisely what I'm not saying to you."

Matt wrinkled up his nose.   "You like me playing the game."

Mello winked at him, but called out to Hal.   "We haven't got five minutes, doll.   Not if it's an emergency situation."   He remained standing where he was, in her way, as Hal pushed away from her tree.    "No. You have your five minutes, but one or more of us need to go and assess the people in the house.    I am prepared to volunteer for that, while you and Mail wait out here." He didn't even glance at Matt's scowl, before adding, "Because of the lady, Mail.   You were raised to be a gentleman. I know, because I was with you."

Hal moved forward, "I'm fine."   She said, in the tone of someone preparing to kill.   "Let's assess this situation."

Lauren's voice cut through the night, "Who's there?"   It came from the direction of the manor house's courtyard.

"It's us."   Hal replied, icily.

She didn't waste time querying it.   "There's an ambulance burning out at the bottom of the chasm.   I think it's the one that came for Fenian.   But that in itself is a little peculiar, as I'd have thought that Deontic would have sent mountain rescue or something."

They were past the gate now, so Mello leapt over the wall.    Lauren spotted him instantly and hurried over.   Mello growled, as she approached, "Situation?"

"The bottle is under the tree.   I have visual on Century and Kiana, or the bottle, at all times."   Lauren straightened into brisk efficiency, with was immediately off-set by Mello reaching her and kissing her cheek.   She inclined her head, acknowledging the familiarity in his greeting.   "Fenian is still missing. Still verbally unresponsive."

Mello considered it.   "And can he get out of wherever he is?   Don't assume that he won't expose Kiana, in a calculated risk, to achieve his objectives."

Lauren shrugged.   "We don't know. This was the first investigation."

Mello unzipped his jacket and removed a semi-automatic from a holster against his chest.   He handed it to Matt, then gave a short twirl to demonstrate that he was no longer armed.   Hal looked genuinely shocked.    Mello allowed the corners of his mouth to curl upwards, but he was already striding into the house.   "Lauren, Mail, stay down here.   I'll be coming straight back down anyway.    Mail," Mello waved at an outhouse as he passed it.   "Check out the lock and what we will need to get in there. I will be returning with a crowbar and there are some tools in the basement."    He had reached the kitchen door.   "Hal, with me, as impartial observer."

He entered the house alone, but Hal had caught up with him by the time they reached the staircase.   She commented, in a low voice, as they climbed the stairs, "I can't helping feeling that I'm being used as a pawn in...."

"No, Hal."   Mello smirked, as he rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. "Always a knight."   He was already through the door, where Century stared up from the floor.    The fear showed on his features for several seconds, before he schooled his expression to neutral.    Mello stood right in front of him and narrowed his eyes. "That was really fucking low.   You want to do this by Mafia rules instead of Watari, then I will be ecstatic to oblige."   He let the words linger, backed with a steely stare that was designed to eat into Century's imagination.   Then Mello smiled. "But until we have the post-match analysis, your catchword is 'tawelwch'."

Hal was surveying Century with open concern.   She focused on Mello, with a frown, "What are you saying to him?"

"Tawelwch."   Mello smiled, the menace gone from his aspect and tone, but his energy remained. "Century's first language is Welsh.   He's white as a sheet and his hair and collar look damp.   He's shitting himself and has been for a while.   Tawelwch means 'calm down'.    It's all of our word of the day.   We should practice it on Century."   He had paced into the vicinity of the priest hole.   He broadened his smile.   "Century, teach Hal to say tawelwch."   Then he leapt straight into the gap in the floorboards.   There were two distinct thuds and Kiana's gasp.   It was pitch black down there.   There was, at least, moonlight in the room with Century and Hal.   "Kiana, you're just his comare.   You were obeying orders."    He stepped purposefully over to the altar and peered down the shaft.   "I respect that."    Mello moved forward, in a shuffling gait.   The room was small enough that he encountered Kiana within a handful of steps.    He simply placed both hands onto her shoulders and turned them, so that they swapped positions.   A second later, there was a loud clang and Mello stooped to swoop up the crowbar.   He strode back to the ladder.   "Kiana, you are holding a firearm in your left hand.   That is very silly.   You're right-handed."

Kiana swallowed.   It sounded too loud in the quiet confines of their space.    "What are you going to do to him?"   She had moved right back, so that they didn't have to connect again.

Mello paused before he answered.    But his words emerged with a solid surety.   "Fenian found his hand of cards.   He played his hand.   I admire his audacity in that round, but my critique would be that he should remember that one battle does not a war make."    He placed a hand above his head, gripping a rung of the ladder.   "There is no cavalry coming for Fenian.   The ambulance crashed with the loss of life of all operatives.   No other messages got through.   Something quite major is happening down in the town."   He paused to listen to Kiana's short breathing.   "Fortunately for you, the Watari response is far disproportionate to the scale of the crisis."   He rose upwards, kicking out at the wall to propel himself even higher. He was in the room above, before Kiana had even exhaled her stalled breath.    "How's the tawelwch coming on?"   He asked, the instant he was clear.   There was no reply, but he hadn't waited for one.    "Hal, I would be very grateful if you would keep Kiana company. She shouldn't be alone down there, especially when you can't see your hand in front of your face."

Hal glanced sidewards at Century, doubt edging her features.   "You're taking him?"

"Yep." Mello stepped to the door.   "Tawelwch, Iestyn.    Hal, you told him that I'm clean, didn't you?"

"Huh?" Hal was jumpy with indecision.

"Come on, people." Mello bounced on the spot.   "Time is of the essence.   I'm not playing anymore.   I'm not here as Mello from the institution.   I'm here as M."    He raised his voice slightly, though Kiana could hear him well enough anyway.   "Ki, I want you to also watch out for Hal.   We have two dead and one missing. Let's cover each other's backs here and fly this baby home." He marched out, calling back from halfway down the top staircase.   "Now, Iestyn.   Before I lose my magnanimous mood."

Mello continued on, not waiting for the teenager to follow.   He rejoined the other two outside, where Matt was picking the outhouse's padlock with a hair-pin.    Matt was partway through explaining lock-picking to Lauren.   "... just a matter of getting the right shape."

Mello pecked a kiss onto Matt's lips.   Mello's hand lingered for the duration on his husband's backside.   He spoke quickly and quietly.   "We're in a ceasefire.   Is he following me?"    Lauren looked past Mello and nodded, just once.   Mello allowed a smug smile to briefly touch his mouth.   "Mail.   Crowbar here."

Lauren bowed her head, muttering, "He's coming out."

Mello held out the crowbar.   He was listening and heard a footfall.   Without turning, he spoke with urgency.   "Fenian climbed down inside the altar.   Is that correct?"

"Yes." Century gasped.

Mello turned now to survey him.   "Remember that we're on the level here now.   Do you need to be in the hospital?   If so, I will try and work a way for that to happen."

Century sniffed, leaning back against the nearside outhouse door.   "No car and no 'phone battery."   He intercepted Mello's frown and misread it.   "Fenian got the keys, see?"     There was a click, as the padlock came loose in Matt's hands.   The redhead smirked.    "But yeah. Don't feel at all well, do I?"

"You do look like shit." Mello agreed, though he smiled to take the sting out of it.   He looked momentarily thoughtful, then nodded to himself and smiled. "We have the skills to get you to hospital.    But first tell me what I'm up against getting Fenian out."

Century bowed his head.   "He said it was brickwork and quartz, all the way down.   One wall quartz and the other three brick.   There's like a weird kink in the construction, so the brick wall comes out."   He demonstrated the shape with his hands.   "It took him a while to get down there.   He had a couple of minutes looking around.   Then something happened."   Their unflinching gazes encouraged him to go on.   "He was all calm, see?   Then suddenly sounded shocked.   Startled.   Said an expletive, then we lost him."

Mello had stepped into the outhouse.    He made a frustrated noise, then prompted his youngest foster brother, "Lost?"

"Lots of noise suddenly, see?"   Century gestured helplessness.   "Did try to get in by there, but I'm too big."

Matt's eyebrows shot into his hairline.   Mello smirked. "So that's why you're sweating like a pig."   He marched out of the outhouse, clutching a sledgehammer.   "Come along all."    He carried on, until he was inside the house.

Century soon overtook Matt and Lauren.    He danced ahead of Mello.   "What you thinking of doing there?"   His eyes shone with a desperate gleam.   He cast a quick glance at the couple behind him, but they were Mello's people.   There was no support there.   "What you smashing?"

Mello surveyed him, a look of faint incredulity on his features.   "I believe that the staircase is Georgian.   He's the one who you accredit with you surviving Wammy's House intact.    Is he worth 300 years of plaster and wood?"    He hoisted the sledgehammer up, adjusting his grip on the handle.   Century watched him, blinking rapidly.   There was a sudden commotion upstairs.   It sounded like every door, on both the second and third floors, were opening and slamming.    Mello's smirk was pure menace.   "Oh! Excellent!"   He exclaimed.   "We're on the right track."    His hammer swung, crashing into the central support and knocking out a great chunk of plaster.   "Century, there is a piano there.   Play it."

"Play what?"   Century was agitated.   It was in his constant movements.

Mello's hammer rose and fell for a second and third time.   "Whatever is going to take your mind off this shit and drown out that racket up there."

Century's voice rose an octave, in both pitch and volume.   "On a piano?"

Mello let rip a fourth time, succeeding in reaching the brick-wall deep within and buckling it inwards.   He paused, sucking in a breath, then letting his biking jacket slip from his shoulders.     Matt dashed in and retrieved it.    "I wouldn't get too comfortable, Mail.   You're having your turn at this too."   Mello warned.    He winked and took several swift, successive whacks at the uncovered wall.     Century turned away and opened the piano.    He started playing.   "Hurrah!"   Mello cheered.    "Coming along.   You were only just mastering your scales, when I left Wammy's."   Lauren laughed and Matt chuckled.   Century didn't react at all.    Mello directed another blow at the wall.   He raised his voice to be heard up the stairs.   "Not that I can fucking hear it with all that noise!    Bring it on, ghosties.   We are so fucking equal to you this time."

He got an answer.   It was so unexpected, that Mello blatantly flinched away, then stared startled up the stairs.    Century missed it, because he didn't look up from his piano.    He was playing his version of Muse's 'Sunburn' with heavier keystrokes than had ever been intended by the composers.    But he wasn't giving a performance.   He was channelling his anxieties elsewhere, before they killed him.

For those on the stairs, it became obvious that the voice above belonged to Kiana.   Mello handed Matt the sledgehammer and hurried up.   He lay bodily on the topmost set of stairs, just to sneak a look.     Kiana stood in the centre of the landing, her head turning back and forth, to view it all at once.   Some doors were still banging.   Others, Mello noticed, had stopped.   "I'm here!" Kiana yelled, over the cacophony.   "I see you!   You have my attention."   She waited.   Then nodded, into the direction of a door that had just slowed.   "Yes, I see you, little one.   What do you want?"    Her expression was terrible.   It was both awe-inspiring and deeply uneasy to behold.   It was the strong mixture of extreme fear, an equal amount of courage and nail-biting anxiety that was doing it.   "Fuck!"    She glanced from Mello to an unseen Hal, then screamed out, "Century! She's telling me in Welsh!"

"I speak a bit."   Mello returned, fascinated.

Century overtook him, at a jog, "And I speak a lot. Fuck off."

Mello nodded and recoiled from the staircase.    He smirked, as he turned the corner, and commented, "Not breathless at all, when he wants to be up there."

Matt reached into the construction wound, that had just showered him in plaster and shards of brick.   He spat out dust, as Mello took the sledgehammer from him.   "Mell, no need."   Matt took his lighter from his pocket and shone it inside.   "Fucking priest hole."

"Wow! That goes down further than I..." Mello began, but petered off, as the implications of a lower level struck home.   "Basement."

Matt smiled,   "I'm right there with you."

Mello nodded, hesitant about this.   The last time he had entered that basement, he had heard his home-town bombed above his head.   He brushed off as much of the plaster dust as he could, before pulling on his biker jacket.   He called up, "We're off to destroy the basement.   Be right back."

Hal hurried to the midway point.   "Who's going?"

"Me, Mail, Lauren."   Mello flashed her a smile.    "You watch the kiddies.   Hang on in there."     Hal gave him an almost apologetic look and appeared about to say something.   Instead, she turned around and dashed back upstairs.   Mello hurried them out of the back door.   There he stopped so suddenly that Matt had to step swiftly to one side to avoid him.   "Kiana's Land Rover."    Matt squinted.   Mello sighed.   "The back end has shifted across quite substantially.    It's now parked sideways on.   Either we've had an earthquake that none of us felt, or Fenian's been back, or the ghosts did it."

Matt nodded and jogged around to the back of the Land Rover.   He tried the handle, then wooted as the rear door opened.   He wore a delighted grin, as he carried Mello's recovered helmet around to the group.   "Didn't lock it."

"Te amo, guapo."   Mello gave him an appreciative once-over look.   Then shepherded him and Lauren around the side of the house to the basement box doors.   "Mail.   Get ready to hate on me, but...." He faltered, then changed his mind.   "Another time."

"What?"

Mello dismissed it with a gesture, then pulled back the wooden doors.   Lauren caught the one nearest to her and secured it back.    Mello flashed her a smile.    "Don't let these close."   He clomped down the stairs, before he could change his mind.   He knew where the light pull was and yanked on it. Nothing happened.

Matt watched it happen.   "It's good, Mello.   I've got the doors.   I'm sitting here until you need me not to be."

Lauren looked curiously between them.   Matt gave her an imperceptible shake of the head.   Lauren acknowledged it with a tiny nod.    She called out. "Do you pair want me to sit here?    I'm the one who hasn't been briefed.   I can do doors."

Mello's voice came from totally the opposite side of the room, from where they were expecting him to be.   "Oh, yes, Lauren. Now we're alone, two things."    He began knocking on the back wall, testing for thickness changes.   "First of all, thank you. I mean that.   Thank you.    We," he paused and corrected himself, "I fucked up earlier and Mail and I regained our ground because you did everything right.   Remind me to give you a pay raise."

Lauren beamed, squirming slightly on her stone stair perch.   "Just doing my job."

"No, you weren't."   Mello replied.   "Your job was to get that shrink as far away from Mail as possible.    But you brought her back here.    Now there's another incident brewing."

Lauren was silent for long seconds.    "But you just said I did everything right.   That was the same incident."

"I know."   Mello returned, mildly.   "It was Mail's dropped bollock.   But, as my employee, I expect you to know that my husband is a..."   He stopped abruptly and crashed down onto his knees, burrowing rapidly into the coal-pile.     "Can I have some help over here please?"    Matt trudged over the coal, until he literally fell over his husband.   It was that dark.

"Fuckwit."

"I couldn't fucking see you."

Mello breathed a triumphant 'yes'.    "A door, definitely.   But the coal keeps falling back."   A spade was dangled in front of his face.    Mello reached up and took it.   "Thanks."

"What?"

Mello felt and heard his husband on his other side.    He glanced back and saw Lauren still on the stairs.    "Who just gave me this spade?"   He demanded.

Matt sniggered, "What happened?"

Mello stood.   "Move out, Mail."   He began shoving coal out of the corner, using up his nervous energy, before it made it to the surface.     "Is that you, Nat?"

"Someone gave you a spade?"   Matt asked.

Mello was clearing the whole section on his own.    He analysed it for way too long.   "Mail, was that you messing around?"

"No."

Mello nodded.   "Ok.   Someone gave me a spade."    He rapidly and carelessly shovelled the last few coals out of the way.   The others were quietly waiting for him to finish.    "Ok. Done."   He straightened.   "Lauren, what was that song that Century was playing on the piano."

"Muse."   She replied.

Matt added, "'Sunburn'."

"Right."   Mello kicked at the little door.   It was wedged ajar.    "Remember that, Mail."

"Ok."

Mello steadied himself with a hand against the wall, then turned sideways on and smashed down with his biking boots.   The wooden door began to crack and splinter, until it crashed back against the wall inside.    "We're in."

"Did you enjoy that?"   Matt asked, in neutral tones.

"It did the job." Mello replied briskly, crouching down.   He peered inside, then scrambled backwards, because someone had peered straight back at him.   "Fuck!"   He clambered to his feet and crunched across the coals, halfway to where Matt was standing.   Then Mello snapped, "Fenian?"   Neither sound nor person was emitted from the corner.   "Fuck this shit."   Mello growled.   He paced in contrite circles on the coals a few times.   The tension in that room was all due to himself.   He knew that. He took a couple of deep breaths, then rasped.   "Have either of you got a secret stash of chocolate on you?"

Lauren's finger bobbed into the air.   She answered brightly, "Yes!   Two of your bars and a Lion bar for me."

"Two of my bars?"   Mello clarified, traipsing over to the stairs.   He gave her a beatific smile as she produced them from her handbag. "Whatever I'm paying you, shall we double it?"   He tore off a strip of the wrapper and sank his teeth into the first square.    He let the chocolate melt on his tongue.   He felt his blood pressure dropping around it.   "Did you have this in your bag especially for me?"

"I did."

Mello grinned.   "If I was straight, I'd marry you."   He turned around, his eyes straining to spot his husband in the darkness.   "Mail, where are you baby?"

There was a murmur from the corner.   "Here."

Lauren spoke distantly, "I can't imagine even living with you, Mello, let alone..."

But Mello wasn't paying attention.   He interrupted mid-sentence to bark out, "Have you got your head through that door?"

There was a rustling scrape, as Matt retreated.   They followed his progress over the coals from the sound of his footsteps on them.    He was at the foot of the stairs, before they could see him distinctly.    He was wearing Mello's motorbike helmet, with the visor down.   His goggles dangled in his hand.   "No fucker in there."   He reported.   "But I did make out something which might have been a door.   To the far right, as you crawl through."

Mello stared at him suspiciously, "Did you go all of the way in?"

Matt pushed back the visor and took out his cigarettes.    He glanced up. Mello had barely blinked, in his intense scrutiny.   Matt nodded.   "I left my feet out."

Mello gave him a withering look, then ate chocolate in silence, until he trusted himself to speak calmly.   "Both of you.   Mail, Lauren.   Do not do dangerous things without telling me.   We really need to be covering each other's backs here."   He saw Lauren's nod from the corner of his vision.   "Mail.   Don't fuck me about, man."

"I'm not."   Matt replied, in measured tones.   Mello watched him with a look that was halfway between wariness and glaring.   Matt uttered a half-laugh.   "¿Que?"

Mello licked the edge of his chocolate bar.   "I'm trying to work out if you're trying to wind me up, or if you're acting out of character enough that it's now a cry for help."

Matt glanced pointedly at Lauren.   She grasped the silent communication instantly.   She started to stand. "Someone should tell Kiana that we've got a lead on Fenian.   It'll put her mind at rest."

Mello rubbed the corner of his eye with his fingertip.   "We'll all go."   He didn't even glance at Matt, as he ascended the stairs.

Matt slowly followed.   At the top, he stated, blankly, "I did it, because you're starting to freak.   I didn't answer it, so that you can retain your dignity in front of Lauren."

Lauren bowed her head, trying to walk a little in front.   This was embarrassing her.   Mello called out.   "Lauren, stop."   She did, but she didn't come back.    Mello addressed his husband loud enough for her to hear.   "She's seen me in a far worse state than this." There was a meaningful pause.    Mello raised his head, like a televangelist Hellbent on benediction.     "I admit it. I was getting a bit stressed in there.    But I've gone fucking ages without chocolate.   I'd like to see you go ten minutes without a cigarette."

"Deal."   Matt said, acidic.

"No. Not deal."   Mello frowned.   "Because we're the poor bastards who'd have to put up with you."   He held up the remains of his chocolate bar.   "I've got my fix now.   My feet are firmly on the floor.   But I have something to say to each of you.   Mail, you've gone hyper.   Why are you challenging me?   You never fucking challenge me!   You win every fucking game, by not playing it in the first place."   He turned his head to look at Lauren. "And you need to stop being scared of him. You're not scared of me. Why are you scared of him?"

Lauren headed back towards them.   She took Mello's left hand and pressed it into Matt's right hand.   "Mello, you over-reacted. Matt, you did it knowing that he'd over-react."   She turned on her heel.   "I'm going to see Kiana. Follow or not, but if it's turning into a marriage guidance counselling session, then I can assure you that it's going to happen well away from this house." She only glanced back as she reached the house. She found them locked in a passionate kiss.   She left them to it.
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Annals of Fear II